True Believers

by Kurt Andersen

In True Believers, Kurt Andersen—the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed author of Heyday and Turn of the Century—delivers his most powerful and moving novel yet. Dazzling in its wit and effervescent insight, this kaleidoscopic tour de force of cultural observation and seductive storytelling alternates between the present and the 1960s—and indelibly captures the enduring impact of that time on the ways we live now.

Karen Hollander is a celebrated attorney who recently removed herself from consideration for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Her reasons have their roots in 1968—an episode she’s managed to keep secret for more than forty years. Now, with the imminent publication of her memoir, she’s about to let the world in on that shocking secret—as soon as she can track down the answers to a few crucial last questions.

As junior-high-school kids back in the early sixties, Karen and her two best friends, Chuck and Alex, roamed suburban Chicago on their bikes looking for intrigue and excitement. Inspired by the exotic romance of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, they acted out elaborate spy missions pitting themselves against imaginary Cold War villains. As friendship carries them through childhood and on to college—in a polarized late-sixties America riven by war and race as well as sex, drugs, and rock and roll—the bad guys cease to be the creatures of make-believe. Caught up in the fervor of that extraordinary and uncanny time, they find themselves swept into a dangerous new game with the highest possible stakes.

Today, only a handful of people are left who know what happened. As Karen reconstructs the past and reconciles the girl she was then with the woman she is now, finally sharing pieces of her secret past with her national-security-cowboy boyfriend and activist granddaughter, the power of memory and history and luck become clear. A resonant coming-of-age story and a thrilling political mystery.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Politics, Audiobook, Historical, Novels

448 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Kurt Andersen is the author of the novels Turn of the Century, Heyday, and True Believers, and and, with Alec Baldwin of You Can't Spell America Without Me. His non-fiction books include Fantasyland, Reset and The Real Thing.

He is also host of the Peabody Award-winning weekly public radio program Studio 360,.

Previously, Kurt was a co-founder and editor-in-chief of the satirical magazine Spy, editor-in-chief of New York magazine, a columnist for New York, staff writer at The New Yorker, and design and architecture critic for Time.

Reviews

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sixty-five-year-old Karen Hollander is an attorney with Type I diabetes, a heavyweight résumé and a Wikipedia entry. Her CV includes (but not limited to) author of four best-selling books, dean of a law school, a corporate lawyer in a powerful law firm, and U.S. Justice Department official. She’s divorced, with accomplished, brilliant children, and she’s devoted to her granddaughter, Waverly, a seventeen-year-old on her way to becoming a likeness of the achieving Karen (with some cute malapropisms that Karen corrects).

The book is told from Hollander’s narrative perspective, as a memoir, to gradually divulge a dangerous secret surrounding her activist activities in 1967, an undisclosed event that caused her to turn down a nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. This secret, she feels, has emotionally crippled her (and likely the former friends involved). Andersen’s rugged skill and talent is displayed here, as he gradually develops a taut, thriller-type story that will keep you turning the pages, and echoes a past that surely is more passionate than its future.

If you enjoy stories about the 1960’s hippie/activist days, you will revel in the revolutionary spirit of the counterculture era--protests, sit-ins, intellectual debates--together with thought-provoking ideas that pad the story, but add to the theme and successfully loop into the narrative. Additionally, Karen’s 007-role-playing missions with her best friends, Alex and Chuck, define her pre-college years and add colorful background to the story. Their friendship was cemented during these risky and adventurous events that began in Wilmette, near Chicago, and peaked as Harvard freshmen. She now lives in LA.

Because of Andersen’s tight pacing and architecture, I was engaged in the story. But I was unconvinced with the incongruous voice of Karen. Hollander's résumé and leanings have all the makings of a Hillary Clinton (inside a size-6 body resembling a 45-ish Julie Christie). At Hollander's age and achievements, one would expect her memoir's tone to be serious, mature, and intellectually sober, and to reflect the weight of the story.

Instead, her narrative voice/tone is an octave too high and young and much too coy and chipper for her judicial years and leadership, not to mention the import of subject matter and this burdensome secret. Of all the voices for Andersen to imbue in Hollander, this contradictory one undermines the gravity of the story and the magnitude of her character. Try to imagine Clinton personifying a college freshman on a sleepover, terrified of spilling the awful travesty of Spring Break. No way! Yes, way! And Hollander periodically speaks in colloquialisms like "grok."

“Living here [in LA] makes me feel as if I’m always getting away with something. What I now clearly see—note to book clubs” [italicized]—“is a major theme of my life.”

The seminal incident of her life happened when Karen was 18, but she is telling it as a fully mature and accomplished woman. It is gnawing to hear her narrate a memoir in a teenaged tone, bright with a cavalier spirit that alternates with calculated contrition. Moreover, there’s too much authorial intrusion as apology—we are coaxed to acknowledge her self-blame, but her role as a martyr is too canny and deliberate.

Hollander’s past is part of the suspension of disbelief, but you are seduced to go along with it by an affecting, historic chronicle of heady 60’s activism. However, Hollander’s supernova status renders the rest of the characters pale and straw in comparison, as if they were set up primarily to prop up Karen’s immeasurable gifts. She hooks up with an ex-boyfriend, who she hasn’t actually seen in a decade, because he has the highest form of secret government clearance, “my friend the senior national security and intelligence-community apparatchik,” as she needs his acquisitive talents to provide secret documents to her. It was too fantastic to accept that he would so easily defy his coda to help her.

The author of the ripe and historical HEYDAY, a resonant novel of the 19th century with a credible female protagonist, is not as successful in drawing out a lead woman character in this second novel. It’s hard to be a true believer, but the tight plot and vivid walk down memory lane convinced me of its earnest desire, if not its plausibility. The wobbly credibility was eased by moments of sensitive introspection about a time that is now too often remembered with bumper sticker slogans and vintage fashion. The heart of the story—of a woman who dares to tell the truth in 2013, an era of avatars and fabrications, Facebook and Twitter--and risk her spotless professional legacy--managed to almost balance the false notes with an exuberant belief in itself.

Almost a 3.5

Thank you to Shelf Awareness for a copy from the publisher.

[DROPPING OUT · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will not summarize or review the book's plot because you, dear reader, can find that done effectively and well by other readers.

Andersen at one points quotes Karl Marx' statement that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. How very true of this novel as well. Andersen has to a remarkable degree captured the tenor of the times, first through the eyes of a teenager in the 1960s, and then through the retrospective vision of that same woman over forty years later. (Forget about Robin William's cutesy comment that if you remember the 60s', you weren't there.)

But what I found most exceptional was how many facts from that decade had to be accumulated and then nuanced through contemporary eyes. All the more remarkable because the protagonist would have been born in 1949, while Andersen was born in 1954. (As I was born in 1945, I guess I trump them both.)

OK, occasionally, I think, Andersen got things out of order, an event from 1966 placed in 1965. More egregious, a statement made by one of the "adult" characters in 1968 that Adlai Stevenson had said that{Eugene] McCarthy had no chance of defeating Lyndon Johnson, if only because Stevenson had died in 1965.

But I will not split hairs - We are not fact-checking James Joyce's Ulysses to verify that such and such funeral did occur on June 16 and not June 17! Perhaps at some future date some overly ambitious young academic will do that and write a dissertation.

And the humor is often delicious. Perhaps my favorite is Karen's grand-daughter not knowing who LBJ was, assuming it was LeBron James!

Andersen absolutely nailed Karen Hollaender as a college student because, reading the book, I recognized her in so many of my contemporaries, and the same for Karen later in her chronological 60s.

I can only wonder: Will anyone ever come this close to capturing in fiction that singular decade which for me was both the happiest and the saddest.

[Mikey B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

*** Some minor spoilers within ***

This is above all a Sixties book of a young girl coming of age with two male buddies in high school in the United States in a town somewhere outside Chicago. It is written from the first-person point of view.

It alternates between the Sixties and the current era – the 2010s where our heroine has become a largely successful lawyer (we are told this repeatedly) and was being considered for being nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. However, she has a big secret that she has kept hidden away since the 60s. She and her buddies were concocting a plot that would be considered treasonous.

The mood of the Sixties is well captured in the story with plenty of references to the era. There is some caustic humour here and there. Sometimes it is like the author is out to impress us with all decades’ cultural minutiae. The plot becomes a thriller/intrigue with plenty of tiresome references to James Bond (I am not a fan).

The character interactions and their school attendance and the evolution of their plot were interesting. I found the current era of our heroine with her grandiose career and endless glowing paragraphs on it, plus the syrupy relationship with her granddaughter unengaging – and took away from the story’s momentum.

This book is just too, too long by at least 100 to 150 pages. I think it would have been much better if the current era reflections had been largely removed. It is over-written and over-stuffed for what it has to say.

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

One week before the publication date of “True Believers,” a novel about the '60s, Kurt Andersen published an oped in the New York Times suggesting that that storied decade, with exhortations to “do your own thing,” was the source of subsequent patterns of greed and selfishness in our culture. It was a provocative thesis that made Andersen a sought-after guest on politically-oriented TV talk shows that don't ordinarily host novelists. The ensuing discussion of the issue merged perfectly with promotion of the novel, just as the novel was hitting the street and the chattering class made this the must-read novel of the season.

It was brilliant marketing and demonstrates how well Andersen, a cultural critic and radio personality as well as a novelist, understands the workings of the media. But how does ”True Believers” stack up as literature?

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!” Wordsworth was referring to the onset of the French Revolution. Karen Hollander quoted the line often at magical moments in her adolescence and college years in the '60s. Now she is writing a book that her publisher has described as “a candid and inspirational memoir by one of the most accomplished leaders and thinkers of our times.” But that's not the book Karen Hollander is planning to write. After a sterling career as lawyer, Supreme Court clerk, Justice Department official, professor, dean, author and television personality, she has just removed herself from the short list of candidates for the Supreme Court and her book will reveal why. She will tell “the whole truth” about her involvement in an episode that took place in 1968, a shocking secret she has kept for forty years that would have derailed her court appointment. She wants the story to come out on her terms so she will tell it herself. She assures us that she is a reliable narrator.

I was intrigued after those first few introductory pages, looking forward to spending time with Karen Hollander, expecting to indulge in some nostalgia for an era I remember well, expecting also some measure of suspense. The book alternates chapters between the past and the present (actually, 2013). In the contemporary sections, Karen tries, with some help from a friend, to nail down the evidence she needs to fill in gaps and fully document her story. We also meet her adored and adoring 17-year-old granddaughter, whose inclination for political activism plays out in the Occupy movement, with Karen as chaperone.

In the chapters that go back to her youth in an upscale Chicago suburb, Karen and her two precocious adolescent friends fixate on the James Bond novels, poring over them for meaningful details and enacting real-life Bondian missions that thrillingly have the potential for real danger. As college students in 1968, helpless with rage in the face of a catastrophic war and lying politicians and desperate to take action as their hero would, these “true believers” call on their inner Bonds to hatch the outlandish plot that will have disastrous consequences and that Karen will reveal forty years later.

My initial enthusiasm for Karen's story waned as I read on. The best historical fiction seamlessly integrates the history and the fiction, immersing the reader in the period and conveying the historical details organically. In this book, I too often found myself taken out of the characters' lives and felt like I was reading a Kurt Andersen essay about the culture and politics of the '60s. Andersen is an articulate critic and he has done extensive research but I was put off by the inclusion of too many brand names, songs, TV shows, and news items, as if the reader might only understand the characters in the context of every possible bit of popular culture. In a paragraph early in the book, as Karen realizes in hindsight that she and her friends were overwhelmed by “all the newness,” Andersen gives us this:

“The sudden arrival, all at once, of stereo records and the Beatles, Bic pens and Instamatic cameras and live transatlantic TV broadcasts and in-flight movies and printed circuit boards and TouchTone phones, area codes and zip codes, Frisbees and Slip 'N Slide and Silly Putty, instant tanning lotion and stretch fabrics and bikinis, McDonald's and Tang and SweeTarts and Sweet 'N Low and zip top cans of Tab.”

At one point, Karen, her granddaughter and the girl's teenage friends compare and contrast the present day and the '60s, a discussion that doesn't ring true for the characters but wouldn't be out of place in a history class. There are descriptions of demonstrations, occupations and meetings that read like journalism. The piling on of historical detail bloats the novel and breaks the spell that good fiction casts. And the crux of the story, the 1968 action and its aftermath are over-plotted, with twists and turns and betrayals that echo genre suspense novels. “True Believers” is well written and mostly absorbing but may be more successful as cultural commentary than as literary fiction.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

True Believers is an interesting book on several levels; a “coming of age” story, written by a man with a female protagonist – both “children of the 1960’s”. Focusing on that very turbulent decade – the Vietnam War, assassinations, religion, feminism, political protest, sex, drugs and of course, Rock and Roll -the author also indirectly shines a very bright light on our current times. This is a nostalgic journey that connects the dots explaining how we got to where we are today, and a case in point that the “good old days” really weren’t. As an essay or exposition proving “hindsight is 20/20”, True Believers succeeds brilliantly – as a novel, maybe not so much. Let me explain.

The plot is straightforward. Soon to be 65-year old Karen Hollander, a divorced grandmother and a successful lawyer/scholar, decides to write a tell-all book, specifically admitting to her participation in a “non-event” back in 1968. True Believers is her story, unraveling this not so suspenseful mystery. No one has asked Karen to “confess”, for although she is “well-known”, she is not “famous”. So it’s unclear as to what’s driving her need to spill the beans. And this is one of the book’s major problems or conversely, fascinating conundrums.

For as serious as Karen’s story is, at times it’s very difficult to take Karen seriously - she surely doesn’t. And what motivates Karen and many of the other characters to do what they do is at best muddled and at worst – nonsensical. (But then why do people today eagerly volunteer to appear on “reality’ TV? And why do so many of us eagerly watch them? Or is this the author’s maybe not so subtle point that narcissism is nothing new? ) For instance what drives Karen and her youthful peers is James Bond; a need to be like Ian Fleming’s literary 007, and not for God’s sake, Broccoli’s cinematic secret agent. And in the end Karen’s dream in a sense does come true, for she falls for a very – although acerbic - James Bond-like guy.

The narrative jumps back and forth in time as current-day Karen digs into her past, rationalizes her old self with a “kids will be kids” smirk, and brings us up to date on where everyone from her past is today. All the while she shares her findings/book with her grand-daughter, who is a thinly veiled mini-Karen Hollander. (Needless to say the two adore each other and are soul-mates. The proverbial apple skipping a generation as it fell from the familial tree.)

As the tale of Ms. Hollander’s youth unfolds the reader re-lives the 1960’s Forrest Gump style, although where Forrest “was there”, we, with Karen, experience much of it through the television and radio – which is exactly how many of us did those many years ago and do so now. Some salient nostalgic points for this reader include the setting – the near north and northwest suburbs of Chicago; a Monkees’ concert Karen attends along with a gaggle of pre-pubescent girls, the “ill-suited” opening act - Jimi Hendrix, (which is true – Jimi and The Monkees were on the same bill - briefly); and a “plot” against the US Government – Karen’s involvement her “big secret” – which reads much like a Hunter S. Thompson caper.

So although I recommend this book, I do so with the caveat that I found True Believers more satire – particularly poking fun at self-centered idealism, then and now - than sprawling novel. And considering the author’s background, co-founder of Spy magazine, this shouldn’t have come as such a big of a surprise as it did to me. Late in the book Karen compares herself – with a nod and a wink - to Flaubert’s Madame Bovary – “a character whose tragic flaw was over-identifying with fictional tragic figures.” (Exactly! There are dozens of such observations, memories and quips throughout the book, which will have the reader simultaneously nodding in agreement, hearkening “back to the day” and chuckling.)

In several reviews of this book much has been made of the male author’s portrayal of a female protagonist, i.e. is it “real” or “accurate”? I didn’t find it so, but the analysis/criticism is irrelevant – at least to me. For this look back at the “wild and crazy” days of the 60’s is not gender specific; the omniscient point of view here is that the more things change, the more they remain the same – albeit with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

[Koeeoaddi · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

An engaging thriller, even if the characters never quite came to life, in a counter-culture I didn't really recognize (despite the obligitory Jimi Hendrix concert, urgent dorm room politics, family dinner fights over who is a fascist and protests against the war in Vietnam). I could forgive those faults and even admit that the walk down a movie set version of memory lane was kind of fun. I might have gone so far as to award 4 stars for being a fairly entertaining slice of nostalgia, were it not for the ludicrous reveal.

Maybe it was some kind of meta-joke but the idea that the CIA would run 18 year old code-named baby spooks from the same group of friends who, in effect, formed a circle and blasted each other (literally or figuratively) was a bit much, even for the Sixties.

[Bonnie Brody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karen Hollander lived through the sixties and remembers the time almost mnemonically. She is now in her sixties and “is reliable. I am an oldest child. Highly imperfect, by no stretch a goody-goody. But I was a reliable U.S. Supreme Court Clerk and then a reliable Legal Aid lawyer, representing with all the verve and cunning I could muster some of the most pathetically, tragically unreliable people on earth. I have been a reliable partner in America’s nineteenth largest law firm, a reliable author of four books, a reliable law professor, a reliable U.S. Justice Department official, a reliable law school dean. I’ve been a reliable parent” as well. As the book opens, she is being nominated for a place on the United States Supreme Court and turns down her nomination. Why? You’ll have to read the book to find out. She is also in great shape, still a size six. Her tragic flaw is that she has Type I Juvenile Onset Diabetes.

Karen and her school friends – Chuck and Alex – spent a great deal of their childhood playing out roles from James Bond books. They revisited various scenarios from the novels and played out their roles. This aspect of her life is very important to her. In fact, when she ends up giving the graduation speech at her alma mater, Harvard University, she tells the graduates that “we are all to some extent fictional characters of our own devising.”

During the sixties Karen, Chuck and Alex were radicals. They belonged to S.D.S. (Students for a Democratic Society), marched on Washington for Civil Rights and against the war in Vietnam. This book is a trip down memory lane for those of us who are of a certain age. Karen and her friends went a bit further than most, however, and she worries that her past will catch up with her at some point.

She is in the process of writing a book all about her past and she has notified those whose appearance in the book might be of concern. Her granddaughter, Waverly, with whom she is very close, is proofreading and editing the book and is surprised to learn all about her grandmother. She had no idea that her grandmother was involved in activities that this book is all about.

Karen sees herself as a reliable narrator so there is no issue here of her stretching the past, employing narrative that doesn’t exist, or making anything up. She has kept notes and files throughout her life – for more than half a century- “I’ve saved every diary and journal, every letter I’ve received, catechism worksheets, term papers, restaurant receipts, train schedules, ticket stubs, snapshots, playbills.” If she is not paranoid, or a legend in her own mind, then she is certainly preparing to give the world a snapshot of someone they will be seeing from a brand new angle.

Overall, the book held my interest but I found myself somewhat bored by Karen. She is an ‘every woman’ of the sixties, stretched to the max. Her character seems a bit unreal. How could someone so intensely radical become so much of a ‘citizen’ over night. There are also elements to some of the characters in the novel that just don’t ring true. They don’t stand up to their roles in ethical ways and the explanations for their actions are missing.

The book is definitely entertaining, a literary romp through the sixties with the privileged. The reader doesn’t spend time with the bourgeois but with the elite. This aspect of the book is not focused on but it is ever present. It is a page-turner and a fun book.

[Diane Kistner · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, let me say that I was pleasantly surprised that a male author was able to get inside the head of a female character and present her like an intelligent person and not a subservient bimbo cliche. I really appreciate that. Second, let me say that I found the book to be too long; it kept going and going and going well after I thought it should have ended. I think it could have benefitted from some tightening, although surprises continued to present themselves up through the very end.

This novel was a real blast from the past. I am only two years younger than the protagonist, and revisiting the period leading up to and following 1968 was intense for me. I had to suspend disbelief, however, because I found some of the relationships hard to believe. At least four of the major characters somehow involved with the intelligence services, even though they were kids? Maybe that happens in privileged families; in my own life, it was a stretch. I found the relationship between Karen Hollander and her granddaughter unbelievable as well. But if you can get past these issues and just let the whirlwind experiences unfold, the book is engaging and filled with little gems.

What I found of most value in reading this book was not the story so much as the periods of reflection I entered into with Karen Hollander as she tried to make sense of the strange brew that was the sixties and everything that's come thereafter. There were moments in this book that I felt like I was tripping or stoned; when the import of life then (and now) seemed so much deeper than it normally does to me; when suddenly things I have always taken for granted became charged, flamed out, like shining from shook foil. Even several days after finishing the book, I am still pondering the more philosophical aspects of "True Believers."

I'd love to see the author try his hand at a non-fiction book exploring the idea of hybrid consciousness evolving out of our immersion in metaphor and role-playing, that slipping into and only partially out of "an in-between realm where the metaphorical and the fantastical mingle[d] with the literal and the everyday." We're living that now and, for better or worse, it's shaping our history.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure how realistic this story is. There were some things that seemed far-fetched, but it had me turning the pages, so I'm not complaining. It was believable enough, and with fiction, that's enough for me. I finished the book in just a few days.

The premise is that Karen Hollander, age 64 in 2013, is in the process of writing a book about her life, culminating in the revelation of a huge secret she's been keeping since 1968. It involves serious criminal activity, and people died. That's all she'll tell you to begin with.

The narrative bounces back and forth between the present (2013-14), and the past, 1949 through 1968. We follow Karen, Alex, and Chuck growing up together in Illinois, forging a "bond," so to speak, over their fondness for James Bond novels and films. When they go off to Harvard, their hijinks involve much higher stakes, swept up as they are in the revolutionary fervor of the 1960s. For those who can remember life in the '50s and '60s, I think this novel could be a great nostalgia piece. Kurt Andersen brings in all the cultural markers -- music, movies, toys, food, clothes, politics -- everything that stirs up memories of that era.

The world must have felt chaotic and frightening for many young people in the 1960s. There was so much change and violence, assassinations, war, nuclear threats -- much of it right here on American soil. At the same time it could be a very heady feeling to be caught up in the maelstrom, certain of the rightness of your beliefs and young enough to disregard long-term consequences. As Karen and her buddies take greater and greater risks, Andersen brings alive that turmoil and idealism. With Karen the senior citizen, we see the haunting aftermath of that youthful misbehavior. Karen Hollander is a fictional representation of many '60s radicals who could never quite escape their past, even when they became adults and embraced the establishment they had once vilified.

[MisterLiberry Head · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish that this novel had lived up to the lure of the line: “I once set out to commit a spectacular murder, and people died.” Confessing to an unstated crime in a potentially best-selling memoir is Karen Hollander--a famous attorney who has withdrawn herself from consideration as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice. She’s been keeping a secret for 40 years--and, despite the confessional purpose of her narrative, she stays coy about specifics and mostly teases the reader or overloads with details about her early years. Our protagonist prides herself on being a “reliable narrator,” even when she bops and weaves like a worn-out prizefighter trying to survive Round 15. She’s about to accuse herself of something really bad--the sort of crime only contemplated by the most hard-core revolutionary--but we sense (ever the lawyer) that she already has a solid legal defense planned. The feminine voice and perspective of the narrator never really persuades--and neither does the story.

Karen begins her story as a girl-geek obsessed with Ian Fleming novels (never met one of those, personally) who juggles two boys as her best pals/sidekicks. Karen keeps herself at the center of the story and everyone else in orbit around her wonderfulness. Pals Chuck and Alex are useful for straddling disparate plot points, but they don’t truly resonate as characters. Neither does Karen, whose long hardback memoir would have been better served as a mea culpa article in “Vanity Fair.”
Basically, TRUE BELIEVERS is a tedious coming-of-age flashback—kind of like the old Woody Allen joke about having someone else’s life flash in front of your eyes. Karen assures the reader that she has an excellent, even an eidetic, memory and a life-long habit of pack-ratting away the minutiae of her own life, but that doesn’t imbue her with a gift for storytelling.

Wikipedia says Kurt Anderson was born in 1954, but he doesn’t “feel” like a fellow Boomer. Although we’re re-visiting a joyful, wild, dangerous, unpredictable time (the Sixties), the author manages to make it all seem as dry and dusty as an archive of newspaper clippings.

Karen Hollander reminisces early on: “The space program was the first time I ever experienced sequel boredom” (p13). TRUE BELIEVERS, unfortunately, feels like a sequel to an unrelated historical novel written by an archivist.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

True Believers is a book that crept up on me. I started it off, and I wasn't sure if I would like it. Then, before I knew it, I was staying up until 4:30 in the morning to try to finish it.

The only reason I wasn't sure about it is because I did not grow up in the 1960's.(I was born in '86)

But this book wasn't just written for the baby boomers. All I had to do was make a few inferences and utilize Google when I got to some terms I wasn't familiar with.

For example, I found myself searching the following: Esperanto (who knew there was an attempt to make a language the whole world could understand?), the Ink Spots, the "Dr. No" theme (When I listened to it on youTube, I realized that,of course, I know this song!), The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Anna Karina, etc. etc. etc.

So, maybe I'm not the target demographic for this book because I haven't even seen any James Bond movies or read any of the books by Ian Fleming. I'll tell you one thing, though. Now I feel like I want to! If I had been versed in Bond, I feel like I would have been able to give the book 5 stars. This isn't the author's fault, though.

The book goes back and forth from the narrator's past and her present as she is writing a memoir about her secretive past. The book cover is an important symbol of the story's events. Think about the peace sign and the fingers crossed as you let the story soak in.

This is an excellent book to read if you really want to get a snapshot of what the 1960s were really like in the USA. Karen Hollander, the narrator, describes that decade in this way: "I think of each year of the 1960s as distinctly as they (her children) think of whole decades."

With the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights era and the space age all fusing together, it's amazing more people didn't go absolutely insane from all the changes. As a younger person who grew up in the 90s, I feel like I much better understand why the 1960s were such a "big deal" after reading True Believers.

*Disclaimer: I received this in a Goodreads giveaway, but this fact did not affect my rating or review.

[Offbalance · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can't even with this book. Here I am, someone who really would love to write a few things myself, but worry that I shouldn't, as I don't have full enough knowledge of these topics. That CLEARLY never stopped Kurt Andersen in writing this book.

A few notes to you, sir:
1. The film version of Grease was released in 1978.
2. Not sure how the theme to Dr. No could be played years before the film's release, but okay.
3. How is it that you spend PAGES UPON PAGES talking about your main character's Type I diabetes and how serious such a condition was in the late 1960s (and even today), but COMPLETELY GLOSS OVER THE FACT THAT SAID CHARACTER WAS PREGNANT TWICE AND HAVE IT BE NO BIG DEAL? Maybe I just have known more people who happen to have diabetes. Maybe Kurt here has never seen Steel Magnolias in any form. Even the tiniest bit of research would have demonstrated that going through a pregnancy with serious diabetes is a big deal, and I doubt sincerely that the MC could have just gone about her busy law-clerk schedule with ease when she had to carry around sugar tablets and run for soda in case her sugar crashed. Not to mention all of the smaller details about the 60s, and modern teenagers that were just completely off base (MC's granddaughter playing a My Little Pony game on a game boy in a nightgown at 17? Sure, Jan.). Not to mention the plot that the MC hatches with her weirdo friends to "elicit change" in the 1960s is the stuff of Austin Powers, not James Bond. Perhaps I grew up watching too many documentaries, but once I found out what the Great Big Secret was, it was the best laugh I had since I finished Mamrie Hart's book. Seriously you guys? Seriously?

Unfortunately, such missteps were all too common in this overlong, dull as dishwater muddle with bargain-basement Tom Clancy aspirations. Every "twist" was laughable, the characters two-dimensional, and the backstory interminable. Avoid.

[Susan Sherwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't put down this novel! When Karen Hollander, a highly esteemed lawyer, is on a short list of Supreme Court nominees, she takes her name out of consideration because of something that she did in 1968. She has kept this secret for over forty years, and as she begins to write her tell-all memoir, she tracks down her old friends for answers to questions she has.

This is a fabulous coming-of-age story of a woman who as an adolescent acted out wild, exciting "James Bond" spy missions with her best friends, Alex and Chuck. Yet, within a short time as Karen and her friends attend college, their lives begin to imitate entertainment. Ushered in is a changing political and international landscape, the civil rights movement, the VietNam war and protests, drugs and sexual freedom, and the loss of innocence, both for the nation and the individual. The characters are well drawn and the perspectives of history on target. Fascinating read!

[Rodger Payne · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this novel is not flawless, it is very good for the most part. There were a couple of chapters that probably could have been cut (given the overall length) and there were some plot choices that did not matter all that much in the end. The first-person narrator is interesting and fully developed and her circle of friends is largely believable. The mysterious "bad thing" at the center of the story is somewhat implausible, but not altogether impossible (especially for 1968 youth who considered themselves radicals). I'm recommending the book.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this ARC via Early Reviews Program at LibraryThing in exchange for an honest review.

I liked this book a lot. The cover in incredibly eye catching and is the main reason I attempted to win a copy of the book. The summary was also intriguing, as well as the title. All these things piqued my interest and I’m definitely glad I got the chance to read this!

This book jumped back and forth from the 60’s to the present, all from Karen Hollander’s point of view, but it didn’t feel all over the place. The story line was very organized and I enjoyed the trip back through time, but I also enjoyed present day Hollander’s interpretation of her youth.

This is almost one of those books I find hard to discuss because it was so well done. There are so many issues discussed and explored in this book, from living with diabetes to racial and political injustices from WW2 to the present. This book was a rational person’s look back at her wild and extreme viewpoints in a time when wild and extreme viewpoints were a cultural movement. It isn’t looking into the hippie era from an anti-hippie or ex-hippie still emotionally invested in the movement, both of which I wondered and worried about when reading the synopsis.

This book was an amazing journey through Hollander’s life, which was incredibly interesting. I couldn’t put it down, out of sheer curiosity. I also had NO idea what happened back in the late 60’s that she kept so secret. While the entire book hints and gives you clues and little pieces, it was entirely unpredictable.

This time in history is something that interests me a lot, but one that I find difficult to learn more about due to bias. I felt like Hollander’s character made it easy to see into what life might have been like, but realistically and less nostalgic. Politically, this period of time either loved or hated, and I felt like Hollander was sort of in the middle about it, which is what made it so great for me.

This was well written, thrilling, exciting, detailed, interesting, and unpredictable. I liked it, and will definitely read more of Andersen’s books in the future.
http://meganm922.blogspot.com/2012/06...

[Mal Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kurt Andersen’s short bio on Amazon.com describes True Believers as “a novel about youth, secrets, lies, politics, love and James Bond.” All that’s true, of course, but it misses the point. So far as I’m concerned, this is a book about coming of age in the famously turbulent years of the 1960s.

I’m eight or ten years older than Karen Hollander, Andersen’s protagonist, so I experienced that era of assassination, the Vietnam War, the Generation Gap, the Credibility Gap, the Levitation of the Pentagon, and the Pentagon Papers from a somewhat more jaundiced perspective. Unlike Hollander, the 1960s didn’t make me into a “true believer.” In fact, for most of the time in which this novel is grounded — the mid- to late-1960s — I was safely sequestered in the Ecuadorian Andes as a Peace Corps Volunteer working with Quechua-speaking indigenous people, who couldn’t have cared less what decade it was or where on earth I came from. Who knows? If I’d stayed home for the show, I too might have become a true believer.

As a reader, you and I find ourselves caring about Karen Hollander because (a) she is a ferociously bright and witty person with a winsome personality, (b) she is a distinguished leader in the legal profession who is now dean of a major law school and only recently removed her name from consideration for appointment to the US Supreme Court, and (c) Kurt Andersen is one hell of a writer. We care about why Hollander took herself out of the running for the nation’s highest court, so we’re driven to learn what exactly happened in 1968 that so preoccupies her.

As it turns out, what happened was as big as it gets, and it illuminates the truth of those fateful times about as well as any book, fiction or non, has ever done before. Kudos to Kurt Andersen for True Believers!

[Viccy · Rating 4 out of 5]

To classify this as crime fiction does it any injustice. While crimes take place, it is their impact 40 years later that create the tension in the book. Karen Hollander is writing her memoirs. She has led an exemplary life, except for one small incident. Along with her best friends, Chuck Levy and Alex MacAllister, Karen believed in the ideals of King Arthur from T.H. White's "The once and future king", might does not make right. At Harvard, Karen, Chuck and Alex meet Buzzy Freeman, a Vietnam veteran, and the four of them determine that LBJ and the war in Vietnam are crushing the life out of everyone in the world. The four of them demonstrate and join in the March on Washington in 1968. It is now 2014. Karen went to law school; married; joined a white-shoe firm on Wall Street; clerked for a Supreme Court justice and was under consideration for a seat on the Supreme Court herself. However, she took herself out of the running because she knew her past could not undergo the glare of an FBI investigation. As the story unfolds, we see youthful idealism fade to be replaced by cynicism and fatalism. This harrowing fall and its juxtaposition to Karen's grand-daughter's idealism forms the core of this book. If you lived through the Summer of Love and remember your emotions during the March on Washington, read this book. You will remember a more innocent and hopeful America.

[Ashley FL · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book from the Publisher. Based on the back copy, I was expecting a legal thriller and it took me a while to adjust to the book: it is most definitely not a legal thriller, but more of the main character's reminiscences and self-analysis of her experiences in the turbulent late 1960s. It is meandering and there is a lot of navel-gazing. I think if I had been prepared for that going in, I would have enjoyed the book more. It is long, and I spent many many pages waiting for the "legal thriller" to kick in!

The one nod to legal thriller is that the main character continually alludes to something terrible that she and her friends had done while in college. I think this was supposed to add suspense, but as a literary devices go, this particular one really annoys me. Out with it, already! Good grief. So that didn't really work for me.

The book (and its main character) reflect a lot on politics: the politics of the late 1960s, of feminism, of life in post-WWII America, etc. The author does a great job of exploring those ideas and leaving room for the reader to reflect on his/her own thoughts on the subject, making it a potentially great book for book club discussions.

[Kevin Stephens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Call it 3.5 stars. I enjoyed Anderson’s non-fiction book Fantasyland, so thought I’d give this novel a go. His interest in real-world political underbellies and epochal zeitgeists is woven throughout this book, so if that’s not your kind of thing, you can skip this one. But almost anyone who came of age in the 60s and 70s with an interest in the lifecycle of that era’s counterculture(s) (OK, Boomer?) will find this entertaining. It’s one of those book-within-a-book things, and it tries to be both a spy thriller and a sociopolitical examination of an era, and I’m not sure if it succeeds wildly at either, but it is a page-turner. I think it’s interesting that Anderson deploys a first-person female narrator. Not being female myself, I don’t know if he did a good job with that or not. She seemed believable to me, although I think any person would have agonized over the disastrous consequences of their actions (a certain 60s radical act that is the centerpiece of the book) more than she did. So, yeah, it seems I have a couple qualms but I give this a thumb’s up.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly believable

I think I got extra enjoyment out of this novel because I am the same age as the main character who is, for her sins, writing a memoir of her life, researching her past,and living her life throughout this endeavor. I felt like I knew her, and her life was very familiar. In her first person, the story is clear, and wry, humorous and sad, and very rewarding to experience. Brilliantly conceived and written, True Believers: A Novel is a read not to be missed. The narrator’s analysis of her life and times is refreshing—as if it really did happen. At times I had to remind myself it was a novel.

[Jami · Rating 4 out of 5]

This started out slow for me, but then it pulled me in. I wondered what this big secret was, and when it was revealed, I was surprised. This was an interesting look at what it was like to be a teenager in the 60s, told from the perspective of a now 60 year old. I can’t help but think of the similarities between the protesters then and now.

[Molly Sanderson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just did not enjoy. The central conflict felt silly and the stakes didn’t become clear until later so I did not care.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bor-ing! If you were a radical in the 1960s, you’ll love this book. But if you’re like me and went to a couple of peace rallies and then happily sauntered back to your apartment to water your plants and drink chamomile tea, you might find this book to be one big yawn. I like a clever story, not a lecture on history and politics; not a treatise that smothers a weak storyline and calls itself fiction.

Anderson is smart and writes well, but his background in journalism makes him a better reporter than a novelist. He likes his facts and he loves educating us. I want to be entertained and I want to escape. I want to join a fantasy family that is going through hell or laughing their asses off, not sit in a lecture hall learning about what happened in the real world.

The first couple of pages were promising. Karen kept insisting she was reliable, so I was expecting her to be the opposite, to tease us with reality versus fantasy, and to transport us into a juicy world of fiction. But never again do we hear anything about whether she’s reliable or not, and I felt cheated. As I said, it was a treatise on the 1960s. Anderson obviously did his research and he did it well.

This book is about a celebrated lawyer, Karen, who harbors a secret from her radical past. She’s writing a tell-all memoir and stirs up some of her old comrades. As we get hints about the secret, the book alternates between the 60s and the present, and that part works. What doesn’t work is the implausible secret.

On the positive side, there is some decent drama, some great talks between Karen and her hip granddaughter, and some intense relationships with heavy consequences. When I got to the relationship parts, I was drawn in. But still, critical personal events are buried under historical and political events that neutralize the effects of the personal dramas. Karen is boring most of the time, droning on and about the government and its many stupid acronyms. (And Karen and her friends make up acronyms, which I found annoying and stupid.) She is made more human by the fact that she has diabetes, which makes her a little edgy. She constantly checks her blood sugar to figure out if her reactions are reasonable or hyperglycemic, and she has to poke herself with needles, sometimes in public.

There is a huge chunk at the beginning where the teenage Karen and her friends pretend they’re James Bond characters. So there is a sickening amount of details about characters and plots from Bond books and movies. Unless you’re a Bond fan, which I’m not, I don’t know how you can stomach it. It’s full of references that mean nothing, and the teenagers’ antics aren’t in the least believable or cute.

One kudo to Anderson—I seriously kept forgetting that a man wrote this book, the portrayal of Karen was so spot on. How he managed to so successfully get inside a woman’s head is impressive.

In an interview, Anderson claimed that he “wallowed in his childhood memories.” I did enjoy going down memory lane with him as he pointed out TV shows, events, products, and phenomena, but it wasn’t enough to keep me engaged. It was painful work to get through this one. His passion for history and left-wing politics took over, and I kept taking breaks, getting some tea (no longer chamomile) and checking for text messages.

Nope, this book just wasn’t my cup of tea. I have to give it 2 stars; way too much work and not enough rewards.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's an old saying that goes something to the effect of "if you're not liberal when you're 20 you don't have a heart; if you're not conservative when you're 50 you don't have a brain." While that statement at face value has little to do with Kurt Andersen's third novel, it was something I thought of quite a bit while reading True Believers, as the change of viewpoint over time and realizing how the degree of importance of certain instances in one's past can be interpreted quite differently with the benefits of history and hindsight are two of the more salient themes.

Karen Hollander (once Hollaender, but nobody can spell it right) has had an illustrious law career, bringing her fame and accolades, including a potential Supreme Court justice nomination. However, Karen turns down any consideration, afraid a "mission" from her politically radical youth will finally return to haunt her. Nevertheless, in order to finally clear her chest, she writes a memoir detailing her youth in a Chicago suburb and first year at Radcliffe leading up to the experience she can never quite put behind herself.

The narrative takes place in chapters alternating between the "present day" in 2014 and Karen's childhood, when she created James Bondesque spy missions with her two best friends, Chuck and Alex. Over time, the trio is swept into anti-Vietnam fervor, becoming politically active in a way much later mirrored by Karen's beloved granddaughter, Waverly, as part of the Occupy movement and its fallout.

Andersen's narration as Karen is very witty, but almost a bit too casual - I couldn't entirely buy that someone respected enough to be under consideration for the Supreme Court could write such a glib tell-all. Nevertheless, I found it compulsively readable and marked quite a few pages filled with interesting insight of which to re-visit. The setting is portrayed really well, too. Obviously the '60s are a good few decades before my time, but I fell right into the setting and appreciated the parallels with current political events.

Another interesting theme prevalent throughout is the importance and influence of fiction on actual events. I remember reading an article last year criticizing President Obama after a bookstore visit where-in he bought several novels for not being a 'serious' reader tackling non-fiction, as if the former doesn't often serve equally sufficient a role in observing the world. And indeed, I agree that fiction really does influence us, particularly what we read in youth as the James Bond novels affected Karen, Chuck, and Alex. Later in True Believers, Karen goes so far as to observe that these days we often go to lengths to fictionalize ourselves, from simple exaggeration in stories to sound more interesting to cosmetic surgery to the anonymity the Internet can afford.

These days we experience extreme partisan politics and the constant threat of the end of times, at least according to the media. But, as Karen says, Armageddon and apocalypse have always been just around the corner - as have 'true believers,' those who have dedicated themselves to a main cause and paint everyone else as with them or against and "loathe the moderates in their midst," - it's all a bit "been there, done that."

I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher for review

[L.S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have the luxury of time and inclination to do so, read this book as an audio book. The story written by Kurt Anderson features a "strong female lead" Karen Hollander who also narrates the story and if you read it old-school, the character comes across as male. If you let Vanessa Hart read it to you it is MUCH more BELIEVABLE.
Karen Hollander is reliving the late sixties while in her sixties. Going back from present day 40 years, she recalls in precise detail the events leading up to a specific time period in 1968. The story almost reads like an essay. Kurt Anderson is some kind of cultural historian and I learned more about the sixties from this book than I ever learned in history class. Like Stephen King's 11/22/63, TRUE BELIEVERS addresses "what if" history had been changed at that moment in time, the moment Karen and her thick-as-thieves friends made a decision to change the course of their lives.
I enjoyed King's book much, much more - he's a fictional genius and his devotion to detail and minutiae were never boring and never dull as Anderson's historical reflections sometimes are. But nevertheless, I stuck with it because I liked the character of Karen Hollander, a diabetic grandmother, former lawyer and Supreme Court nominee - she is smart, tough and vulnerable and interesting enough to listen to. The book's other engaging character is Karen's granddaughter Waverly - I wish there were more scenes with her - he gets this one right.
I wish there had been more spark between Karen and her male friends, lovers and arch enemies, but here, the book falls a little flat. The relationships lack spark where they should absolutely leap off the page.
Switching back and forth between Karen the adolescent and Karen, sexy grandmother leaves something to be desired also - I think its called pacing.
While it was interesting to learn about 60's culture and jargon, it was tedious to wade through such an exhaustive account of it, while the segments set in the present wallowed in trying to build-up intrigue for what really maybe wasn't that big of a deal in the first place.
I feel like the English teacher who gives a kid a B for effort and detail but withholds the A due to lack of emotion and connection with the subjects.
Its a 3 1/2 star book that could be a 5 star work of art in the hands of a true storyteller.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karen Hollender is 64 years old and has decided to write the story of her life. She was recently on a short list of candidates for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court but she has taken her name out of the running. In this novel, we find out why and what secret she has been hiding for many years.

In this wonderful book, we learn about Karen's loving, middle-class upbringing in Wilmette, Illinois. It is the early 1960's and she and her best friends Chuck and Alex are all James Bond fanatics and they like to act out clandestine and imaginative spy missions. Told in chapters that alternate between the present and the past. we follow Karen and her friends as they grow up during the turbulent 1960's. As the war rages on in Viet Nam, Karen becomes more radicalized and politicized as so many did during that time. But when that radicalization includes a subversive and criminal plan, everything changes.

I have read several books about the 1960's and the counterculture movement and this may be one the best ones I've read. I thought the author nailed the descriptions of what it was like during that decade and I also thought his observations about the culture both then and today were persuasive and compelling. There were unique things about the 1960's for sure, and no doubt America did lose its innocence and change after the assassination of John Kennedy. But as this book so brilliantly shows us, much of what we thought was so exclusive to that time is more universal and relevant today as well.

This novel is not just an astute look at our culture then and now, it's also the author's shrewd observations about time and memory. Perhaps it's because I am old enough to remember Kennedy's assassination, but I felt that this book absolutely spoke to me. I have dog-eared so many pages of this novel because I thought there were so many passages that were so spot-on and so clever. I don't know if someone much younger would get as much out of this book as I did, but for me this book was just terrific. Although I thought it was a little slow-go towards the start, it soon became a page-turner for me and when I put it down I couldn't wait to pick it back up. I am writing this book at night after having just finished it, and I know I will be thinking about it for a long, long time. I can think of no higher compliment than that.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a lot of fun with this one. A not-overly-serious political thriller about reflecting on youth, being a radical teen in the late 60s, and how life imitates art (but the art is mostly James Bond).

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly suspenseful, despite not being a “who dunnit.”

Written from the point of view of Karen Hollander, a successful, 65-year old female lawyer who withdrew her name from consideration for nomination to the United States Supreme Court, with frequent flashbacks to her life from age 8-20. Although the reader knows from the beginning that the pivotal events in her life occurred during her early college years and suspects that these pivotal events are the cause for the withdrawing of her name, most of the 438 pages build toward a full explanation of what exactly occurred.

Ms. Hollander is a life-long liberal, and at times a radical liberal, who jettisons most of her Catholic faith at a young age. If you are of liberal political persuasion, or you are able to set aside your other political views, this will likely be an enjoyable read for you.

I expected this book to contain courtroom drama – it does not. Instead it is an historical and retrospective biographical story of growing up as a radical in the 60’s: from small town Illinois to Harvard College, and beyond. Although there is a tremendous amount of 1960’s political and cultural information in the book, it reads smoothly and builds to a satisfying conclusion. I found that, in places the book dragged a little, weighed down by too much detail for my taste; others may disagree.

Disclosure: I was randomly selected from among numerous GoodReads readers to receive an advance copy of this book; I have read it and this is my honest evaluation. I have no connection with this author or publisher and have received nothing from anyone in consideration for publishing this review.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received True Believers as an Advance Reader Edition. I'm not usually a reader of novels that focus around politics but I found this book very interesting. It was a great mix of mystery, history, and relationships.
The story is about Karen Hollander, a successful lawyer, who chooses to forego consideration for the U.S. Supreme Court. Karen has a dark secret from her past that she has decided to reveal in a memoir.
Writing the memoir makes her revisit her childhood and teen-age years growing up in the 60's. We learn about her 2 best friends, their love for James Bond, and their growing frustration with the government and the Vietnam War.
I enjoy reading historical novels but they usually involve British Royalty or Egyptian pharaohs. I have never been interested in the near past such as the 60's. I actually found it extremely interesting and it made me realize how much our world has changed and evolved in just the past 40 years or so.
The mystery of her dark secret is slowly revealed as she uses a friend from her past to help her find more information about what she might have forgotten. She wants to make sure her memoir is totally truthful. The mystery keeps you guessing and is woven very well into the story.
The relationships with her best friends from her past and her family in her present are very well developed and interesting.
Andersen is a great writer with many intelligent and thoughtful views of our world then and now.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and at times had to remind myself that it is a novel and not a memoir. The great mix of history, mystery, and relationships made this a great read.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book through First Reads and I was really excited to get it started. The book is a fictional autobiography of Karen Hollaender/Hollander, a prominent lawyer and academic who turns down a Supreme Court nomination. Early in the novel, we learn that Karen turned down the nomination because she was nervous that an incident from her past would be brought to light during the confirmation process. I will refrain from revealing this incident in my review so don't worry about spoilers.

Karen narrates the book, alternately telling tales of her childhood and coming of age in the 1960s and delving into her hunt for information and documents about the mysterious incident that she has been hiding for over 40 years. For me, the parts of the book where Karen takes us through her early years really shine. Clearly, a lot of research about the student movement in the 1960s and Ian Fleming's James Bond novels was put into these sections of the book. The detail in these sections was vivid and realistic. The parts of the book that focused on Karen's search for information in 2013 were less engaging to me. Most of the "modern" characters felt a little flat, with the exception of Karen's childhood friend, Alex, but as he features heavily in the flashback sections, this is no surprise. Karen's granddaughter, Waverly, seemed to be too much of am archetype of a disillusioned teen, and really didn't have her own unique personality.

Overall, though, this book was a deep and engaging read. The author was able to seamlessly include some thought-provoking questions and themes without coming across as didactic or obvious in the attempt to get the reader to think about those themes.